


i sleep in agony (i sleep alone)

by kogaritsu



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Implied Sexual Content, Lost Love, M/M, Messy Writing, Mild Blood, Requited Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:15:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25687945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kogaritsu/pseuds/kogaritsu
Summary: “Do you love me?” He asked back, watching as Rei covered himself with a robe, concealing love bites and desperate handholds that painted his lovely body blues and reds.“More than the moon loves the sun, my dear.”
Relationships: Hasumi Keito/Sakuma Rei
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16





	i sleep in agony (i sleep alone)

**Author's Note:**

> some reikei from my hotel au..... idk i just missed them and im sad so i wrote this

Rei gasped against his pillows, keen ears picking out cricket melodies that sang in sync with Keito’s racing pulse. His fingers twisted in the silk of his sheets, knees sliding apart every time he tried to pull them underneath him. Keito dug short nails into the sallow skin of Rei’s hip, blunt teeth biting into his shoulder with the aggression of a lion to an antelope. It shouldn’t have felt good, and it didn’t feel good. But anything was better than the horrible, empty nothing that plagued him when Keito left his clutches. The pain of him coming, and taking, and promising to never leave, and then (in the end) leaving all over again was the only thing that had Rei lighting candles in the windows. Just in case Keito’s life could bring him home again.

Just in case life would let him have Keito once again, just in case he had another chance to offer his heart, body, and soul to the only man he’d ever found a reason to live in. It didn’t hurt so bad to watch him leave anymore, because there wasn’t a single time he didn’t come running back looking better than the last time. This time, though, felt less like forbidden touches between old lovers and more like a final kiss goodbye. 

Wine aged well, but Keito aged better. It was a shame that his stamina was the only thing that didn’t improve… Rei followed him, freefalling over his edge and tasting heaven when he closed his jaws around bowstring-calloused fingers. His eyelashes clung to tears like criss-crossed black cobwebs shaken dry by overstimulated shudders. Keito brought him back to earth, cradling him to his chest and swadling them both in fine silk. It was no wonder Rei had fallen so deeply in love, Keito was a gift from the heavens. The curtains billowed with a gust of wind, and Rei watched his hair billow with them, eyes full of the stars hanging over their heads.

“Well.” Keito’s skin prickled at the feeling of nighttime air on sweat-damp skin, “Good things can never last forever, can they?” 

Rei dragged long fingernails over Keito’s sternum, drinking up the shiver it earned him. His tongue dragged over a long healed scar, lips closing around it to suck an obscene bruise over the old wound. The record player on his vanity skipped, stuttering around the music that was supposed to play at their wedding. Just to be mean, he pressed harder with his nails, watching beads of blood stain smooth but blemished skin with the eyes of a lover, not a predator. Red teardrops caught in the even dips of Keito’s ribs, ruining the pale purple sheets when Rei made no attempt to stop them. Keito’s blood was always his favorite, a rare delicacy that only came at times of extreme elation; the taste was only half of the beauty, frankly.

Red on lilac was such a wonderful combination, so unappreciated in the artwork hanging crooked on the walls. The only way Rei cared to see it was in moments like this, and only by his own hands. He was no artist, but Keito was his muse, haunting his dreams and nightmares alike like a stunning poltergeist. Sometimes, he loved him so much it felt like hatred.

“No, I suppose good things never do last.” Rei finally said, pushing himself upright to stretch ancient muscles and flinch through the way his back popped. 

Keito sat up as well, eyes trailing down Rei’s figure only once before he wrenched himself out of bed to get dressed. Pillow talk was never his specialty, and Rei was far too good at it; his afterglow was ruined the second they started talking.

“Was this the last time?” Rei asked, admiring the slope of Keito’s neck as he buttoned his shirt. “I want to watch closely if it is… It’d be my first time losing you for the last time.”

Keito finger combed his hair neater, fingers straying to turn off the music that was still filling the bedroom. Hearing it hurt worse than the stinging cuts on his chest, a painful reminder of when he broke off their engagement. His ring shone brightly in the mirror, reflecting delicate candlelight and promising him that his time with Rei was only brief. It was sick, the way he always crawled back. Even when he was crawling away from someone that could love him the way humans should be loved.

“Do you love me?” He asked back, watching as Rei covered himself with a robe, concealing love bites and desperate handholds that painted his lovely body blues and reds.

“More than the moon loves the sun, my dear.” The sheets they’d just ruined were peeled off the mattress and left in a heap on the floor, it wasn’t quite suitable for such expensive bedding, but Keito couldn’t be bothered to care about them.

It was time for him to leave, anyway. He’d gotten what he wanted, and he still wasn’t satisfied, and it was a damn shame. If staying would make the wounds heal faster, Keito would stay as long as it took to feel better; staying would only prolong their shared agony, though, and they were both painfully aware of the fact. Rei still slunk closer, kissing Keito’s mouth like he was made of velvet. Loving him hurt more and more the closer his mouth came to Keito’s heart.

“This good thing could last forever, you know.” He mused, nose to Keito’s pulse point and voice like warm honey.

Keito thought about tugging away, thought about bidding Rei goodbye a final time. His ring was heavy on his hand, an unintentional microaggression that likely served to remind Rei that forever as one of his kind was nowhere near what Keito wanted. “You know that isn’t what I want. I can’t be… that for you. And I’m sorry to say ‘no’ over and over again.” 

“I know.” Rei hummed, kissing Keito’s knuckles before they slipped out of his reach, blowing out the candles before they burned too low. 

\-----

“I was wrong.” Rei confessed, pants wet from rain kissed dirt and fingers slashed from the roses in his hands. The clouds rumbled above him, teasing thunder and lightning that had yet to come. “This was the last time you left me.”

Sobs bubbled from his throat, incomprehensible and sharp against his tongue, “And this time I can’t stay up hoping you’ll come home…” 

Keito’s locket was hung on a low branch, swinging with the unruly winds and barely brushing the tip of Rei’s nose as it pedulated. An old picture of them was inside, a reminder of when they were young and lovestruck. It’d been decades now, and yet Rei could only find one difference in his appearance after so many years: it was so much harder to smile with no one to poke fun at his crooked fangs. 

“I miss you.” He whispered over the storm, as if the tree they’d carved their names into could answer him. As if it’d miss him back. As if it could embrace him and shield his sickly body from the pouring rain. Keito was gone, and an unloving tree was an empty replacement.

His fingers bled against the dirt, soiling the wound and soiling Keito’s memory; he’d be disappointed to find Rei mourning him in such a state. ‘The dead should be honored.’ he snapped in the back of Rei’s mind, ‘Celebrate my life, not my death.’

“It’s not that easy.” Rei cried back, voice echoing as hollow as the rotting wood in front of him.

If Keito could talk, he’d tell Rei that he knew that. Grief was a fickle emotion, never content with what you give it; he’d tell Rei to give it nothing and grow from the loss. He’d ask him not to spend centuries mooning over an affair that lasted mere decades, he’d tell him to find someone else to warm his bed. But, Rei decided sullenly, no one else would fit so perfectly in the crook of his arm. No one else would taste like green tea and spring evenings. No one would love Rei with the elegance and cruelty that Keito did. 

So Rei lied in the dirt, fingers pricked to hell and stained by the earth he begged would claim him too. The storm carried on, soaking into his bones and making him wish more desperately than ever before to starve under that dead cherry tree.

**Author's Note:**

> its supposed to be kind of roundabout and hazy but if its unreadable please tell me


End file.
